in splitting our holiday bill this way?

[Runningwithscissors]

We are going away with our friends on holiday, and I'm trying to work out the fairest way to split the bill.

There are 7 adults; 3 couples; two with 2 children, one with 1 child (us); and one single friend. The children will have a room each.

I have already paid for the whole holiday. IABU to split the costs on a per bedroom basis, which would benefit me and the single friend, and penalise the couples with more children? Or would that we unreasonable, and should I split it on a per adult basis, which doesn't take the children into account? This would mean that me and the single friend paid more.

Don't care about how much I personally end up paying, just want to do what's fair... help!

Personally I would split it on a per room basis, unless there is a significant size difference in the rooms (e.g. their kids will be in box rooms and you will be in a big double with and en suite

Have a look at the rooms and decided which ones are worth a bit more, then agree amongst you who will take the bigger ones (tell them the prices you've allocated each room to help them make a decision!)

It would be really unfair to do it on a per room basis, if say one of the couples is on a sofa bed in the living room.

is the accomodation priced per room - or unit?

2 years ago I went away with a friend and stayed in a Caravan, I paid the whole lot, and we went halves on the cost of the caravan - despite that fact that I have 3 children and she only has one.

We've always divided it by adults. Works well for me as I have 3 DC . I have ALWAYS offered to pay more as I have the most kids in our group of friends but friends have always refused. My twins usually end up sharing a bed so I don't need extra bedrooms!

Is this a house rental with 6 bedrooms. If so, then yes, I'd do it one the basis of number of rooms.

I think your single friend should pay less.

I don't think there is much difference between those couples with 2 children and you with one child.

Sorry, I'm not much help.

Perhaps a rate for couples and a slightly cheaper rate for your single friend.

So would I do it by rooms - I'd be a bit annoyed as the single friend if I were paying the same as a couple with two children taking up three rooms between them, since presumably you could've had a smaller place if you needed less rooms.

but if the kids are in box rooms, charge each a half rate. So one adult room plus two kids rooms = two adult rooms.

if each child has a room then, yes, reasonable to do it on a per room basis. We do it like this (or per bed if children are sharing rooms). For a while we only had 1 child (and actually even now DD2 is still in a cot so ends up in our room often) whereas friends had more children so its fairer this way.

So 7 adults and 5 children in total? And you're looking at 4 bedrooms for the adults and 5 bedrooms for the children? 9 bedrooms overall?

If the setup is such that the families with 2 children have to have 3 beds (because their children are opposite genders of a certain age), and this is what they have requested, then it is fair that they should pay extra. They'd have to do the same if they stayed at a hotel. Usually a family of 4 would expect to need 2 bedrooms on holiday, same as a family of 3.

If on the other hand the accommodation is simply bigger than necessary, and they would otherwise be happy for their children to share, then yabu and the cost should be shared amongst the adults.

split by room, fairest and cleanest way

Ladymuck, you have it right about the number of rooms, but while I know that one family would definitely be looking for a room per child, I didn't discuss it with the other family. So they could theoretically be happy for their 2 kids to have shared...

When you're trying to book a holiday for so many people you're just so grateful to have found something decent that the finer details pass you by at the time...

I think split by paying adult.

I'd split by rooms.

blimey, you lot are no help, it's about 50/50

i'd do per room, and before you get there, draw up a suggested rate. (can you get a list/plan of the rooms from the website?) when renting rooms in a student share, there's quite often a different rate depending on the size & quality of the room.

i was a bit when we shared with friends. they had the room with the en suite, and their kids got a room, us & dd were all in one room together, which had a significant damp problem. each family paid half.

I would say each child count as 1/2 an adult, and price accordingly, surely no-one could object to that?

i'd actually split it by person so x amount devided by 9 single friend pays once, you pay 3 times etc etc

It's a bit silly to book a holiday and not discuss how much everyone is paying before booking!!

Good luck with the rest of it, food bills etc

I'd go with MaryBS's idea of each child being 1/2 an adult, so if say (for example), each adult pays £200 and each child £100.
Family A & Family B pay £400
Family C (you) pays £300
Single friend pays £200

Not sure what I think it fairest but I would just get together with the other adults and work out what they think!

I have 3 dcs and would expect to pay more unless they were in 1 room.

How old are the children.

You could divide (is it 12 inc kids?) the cost by 12 then work out each persons bit.

or divide by the 7 adults (if the kids are babies)

kickassangel

Quite like MaryBS's suggestion - Compo, will definitely be starting a food kitty right at the start - suggestions as to how that should work also very welcome...

Kids are all between 1 and 5.

I think it would be unfair to split just by number of adults, as that puts a lot of cost on the singleton. I like MaryBS's suggestions of doing by person but with kids counted as 0.5 each - and that could be a good basis for splitting any costs while you're away too. It's pretty much how we split things when we go away with my friend (her - 2 adults, 2 large teens, a 12 and 4 yo; us - 2 adults, a 7 and 3 yo) - in fact, we usually ignore the 3 & 4 yo and then work out costs based on the rest of us with the 12 and 7 yo counted as 0.5 each, so in our case it's a ratio of 2.5:4.5 us:them.

This shouldn't be your problem to sort out alone - why not just ask the other adults involved what they think?

Bear in mind though that when your single friend says in a polite voice 'oh I suppose we could just keep it simple and divide it per adult' she is probably thinking 'for feck sake why do I have to pay for other people's kids'.

My family have a 'split by adult' policy on meals out and it drives me demented. The other adults all let their many kids and step kids order whatever they like, safe in the knowlege they aren't going to have to pay for all of it. Seems so unfair to me but if I complain I will get catsbummouth from everybody else and it isn't worth it. Sigh.